Star Wars AT-AT Walker birthday cake

For weeks, Ulysses has been describing the cake he wanted for his sixth birthday party: a "Giant Robot Cake." All good Star Wars geeks will recognize this as an AT-AT Walker as seen in the Battle of Hoth, in the early scenes of The Empire Strikes Back.

After some slices were taken out, the head adopted a more lifelike angle!






The luscious cake interior. I assure you, no mixes were involved. Everything is completely from scratch.


I have to run to U's kindergarten party now to deliver 24 Storm Trooper cupcakes. I promise more details in this very post ASAP!

U's first day of school

Click on the picture with the arrow to see more pictures and two short videos of U's first day of school.

Ulysses was so excited to go to "big boy school." This summer he attended a six-week K-ready program that the school system provided. This, though, is the real thing! As it happens, his teacher, Ms. Ward (white cardigan) is the same teacher who evaluated him in March and recommend the summer school. They had instant rapport.
Ulysses wore jeans that Amma (Don's mother, Janice) sent earlier and a green checked shirt and white sneakers that we bought with funds she sent for school clothes. The backpack is a one-dollar find from a yard sale Don and Amma went to. For years Amma has been saying she will come and help Ulysses with the start of kindergarten. This year, it all came true. We went shopping for school supplies a week or so ago and had them all assembled to bring in to class. Nowadays they give you a list of what to get, including some classroom supplies.

The tables were set with an apple nametag for each child. Ulysses said, "I love my nametag!"

Christmas Eve 2008

I just reread this blog entry from last Christmas Eve – http://vesnavuynovich.blogspot.com/2007/12/adorable-christmas-anecdotes.html – and was struck by the magnitude of difference in Ulysses today: his comprehension, the abstraction of his thoughts, his articulation of them. Last year he was in the moment in such a way – there was no use describing to him a distant future.

This year he's been anticipating Santa's visit for weeks, announcing regularly that tonight was the night. We pointed to the day on the calendar as it approached, showing him, "We're here, this is today. Santa's coming on this day." It was hard to see his scope of comprehension, but probably a safe guess that it wasn't total. I should have told him it was a map of time, because he understands maps. (Thanks, Dora.)

On the morning of Christmas Eve, we told him that this was the big day -- that Santa was in fact coming tonight, that we had a lot to do to get ready. He was elated. We drove out to storage to pick up the tree and decorations, then to the supermarket for figgy pudding ingredients. Would you believe Copps, giant as it is, doesn't carry suet, while our neighborhood market does? It's in the same chaotically, gloriously mixed case of ethnic speciality animal parts as the chitterlings, necks, feet and other tidbits for the adventerous. Or the traditional. Depending on your point of view.

I set White Christmas to play on the DVD. Don got out the battery-powered Christmas train while I prepped the tree area. We stood the 5-foot square cedar play table (built by Don in 2006) on its side against the bookshelf to clear the living room corner. The toy bins that live under the table went into Ulysses' room. I remembered the white vinyl that been discarded at my workplace that I'd brought home for another project, and Don brought it in. We cut parts of it and made a tree skirt about 8-foot square, large enough for the train to run on its extended length track for the first time. We discovered that the other side had been printed on -- it was the color of winter sky, with a field of irregularly placed soft white dots. Snowfall! How fortuitous was that? Or maybe the dots were the printing error that caused the banner to be jettisoned. Either way, it worked for us. We draped the play table with the blue side out, a much better backdrop for the tree than bare wood.

Throughout, Ulysses played on, under and within the enormous length and width of vinyl. As soon as the snow pattern was revealed, he jumped on it with his bare feet. "Cold! It's so cold! Ouch, ouch!" he shouted, gleefully jumping from foot to foot. "Brrr, snow," he said. Next he made an "igloo" of the cavernous mounds, pulling me under with him, insisting that I also complain of the cold. It was hot under that vinyl.

There was a bit of a snag when we eventually cut up his ice fields and igloos for tree skirting and background draping, and then folding up the rest to put away. "My igloo!" he said, horrified. "You broke it!" Then I pulled out the box containing the Christmas tree. I showed him the label, with a photograph of the contents.

"Mama!" he said, excited, "We have to make the Christmas tree beautiful."

Ulysses enthusiastically pitched in to help string the lights, hang the delicate glass ornaments and unpack and set out the trees and buildings and people of the miniature village. Consider this word, "help," with circumspection. For instance, he tended to hang the ornaments not on the branches, but the needles thereon. Matching ornaments, he believed, should properly all hang on the same branch tip.

I moved into high parenting gear to prevent electrocutions, injury and excessive breakage. Don split for the far end of the house and shut the door.

An hour later, the tree was done and only one ornament, a green glass ball, had paid the price. Ulysses had been batting it around on its branch, not heeding my warnings: "Ulysses! Be gentle with that. It's fragile. This breaks very easily. It can cut you."

"No, this is not fragile," he insisted. He gripped at it, and it collapsed into shards between his fingers. A moment of shock, then howling tears. "I cut my hand! The orn'ment broke! My green orn'ment!"

His hand was not cut. Whew.

After a few moments, he was ready to be consoled with a different, identical green ornament that he hung on the same branch. He moved on, but not before he batted at it – gently – to, fro and to again, announcing, "Be careful. This breaks very easily!"

Then there were the fancy glass ornaments,the kind with the deeply indented, faceted centers. Ulysess saw one and declared it broken.

"It's not broken," I said. "It's fine. This is the design. It looks this way on purpose."

"It is broken," he insisted.

"Look, there's nothing wrong with it," I said, angling it so we could see directly into the indented pattern.

It was broken. During storage, the wire for hanging had punched through the thin wall of indented glass from within.

Oops.

After I'd thrown out the broken pieces, I brought out another ornament of the same type.

"No," said Ulysses. "It's broken."

This one was not broken. But he was having no truck with any of the tray of center-dented ornaments that seemed to splinter dramatically in upon themselves. "These are broken," he insisted.

I replaced their lid and put them back in the ornament box for the season.

Ulysses regarded the half-dressed tree. "That's not beautiful," he said, and looked on the verge of tears.

"We're not done yet."

"But it's not beautiful, Mama!" He whimpered.

"Then let's keep trying. Look at this one!"

"It's a egg!" he said.

"Yes! This is a goose egg from our friend Cindy and our friend Troy. They brought it to us from ..." I couldn't remember the country they'd visited. "... Eastern Europe!"

"A egg, a egg! Two eggs!" Happy again, he set to work trying to hang the elaborately painted goose eggs on the same needle of a single branch, and didn't mind when I helped him pick out two different branches instead. Peace had been restored.

Later: "Mama! The Christmas tree is beautiful! We made it beautiful! Together!"

Santa Claus is coming

I never meant to raise my child to believe in Santa Claus. A fictional supernatural being who gets the credit for staging the gift-giving festivity when everyone knows perfectly well it's the parents who did the work. That it's the parents' love that makes it happen.

But it turns out my usual approach to teaching him about the world -- which might be summed up as a threefold exposing him to situations, things and opportunities, keeping him safe and staying out of the way of his process -- doesn't work the same with Santa Claus as it does with say, gravity or sharing.

The world of physics, his developing body, his energy and his inborn drive for self-preservation provided everything he needed to learn to climb the steps to the slide and come down it. It was easy to learn what leads to stumbling and a skinned knee. The world of interacting humans likewise provides plenty of feedback about what happens when two children covet a single toy. Eventually each toddler learns that snatching and running leads not to an unhampered relationship with the object of desire, but only to weeping, screeching and unhappiness all around.

Not so with Santa Claus. His image is all around all year -- you notice this when you have a young charge -- and especially as the autumn deepens into winter. He's featured on episodes of otherwise non-Christmassy TV shows. Often the plot of these episodes turns on the nullification of one character's disbelief. Or he's simply there, as real as any other fictional being in the show. He's around. He's iconic.

He's the guy who brings presents to children. And children do get presents, after all. For a four-year-old, this is not a controversial syllogism.

Anyway, I thought we shouldn't tell Ulysses that Santa Claus exists. Donald thought we should. As it turned out, it wasn't our decision to make. There was no point at which we would bestow or withhold this piece of information. (Technically, misinformation.) The world has taught Ulysses about the person of Santa Claus. The only real choice is between going with the flow and convincing him that it's all made up. That there's not really any such guy.

In other words, to be really, really mean.

So I'm going with the flow.

Santa Claus is about as real as Spongebob. But how real is Spongebob, for Ulysses? Does Ulysses realize that there is no pineapple under the sea? I want him to know that Steven Hillenberg's imagination is the true wonder of Spongebob. That Tom Kenny, Patrick Warburton, Clancy Brown -- to name just a few of that show's marvelous voice actors -- are among the legions of artists who create this pulsingly alive semblance. There's nothing to gain from trying to explain this to him now. Soon enough he'll know that these guys are made up of lots of little drawings shown in succession, synched with audio recordings made elsewhere. What does he understand now? I'm not sure. But I'm sure it would be futile, not to say hurtful, to dog him with the notion that "Spongebob is not real." Well, there he is. Interacting with a whole world of characters and things. Uttering quotable quotes that we quote in this household. Learning life lessons that we cite.

Every night for the past week or so, Ulysses has told me, in the dark of the evening and often as we're turning out the lights, "Santa Claus is coming tonight."

Each night, I say, "Santa Claus is coming soon. But not tonight."

And Ulysses answers, matching my tone in an exaggerated singsong: "Yes, tonight."

Meeting Santa

Santa was at Walgreens, meeting children and posing for photos.

"Let's go for a ride," I told Ulysses after breakfast.

"Noooo. I'm not going for a ride," he replied.

"C'mon, we're gonna go out and see Santa Claus."

"Nooo, I'm not gonna go out and see San...." he trailed off, stopped and turned toward me. "I'm gonna go out and see Santa Claus!" he crowed.

Moments later I was helping him squirm into a full set of winter clothes. But when I brought out his boots, he said, "Nooo. I don't wanna wear boots. I want to wear my Thomas shoes."

His Thomas shoes are sneakers. The ground outside was mounded with the year's first thick snowfall.

"These boots will protect your feet from the snow," I said. "They'll keep your feet warm and dry. Your Thomas shoes aren't for this weather."

"Noooo. My Thomas shoes are magic. Boots are not magic."

"You know who wears black boots?" I asked. "Santa Claus."

"Boots! I'm wearing black boots! Mama, put these black boots ... on!"

* * *

At Walgreens, we caught sight of Santa and Ulysses stopped short, fell silent. His eyes widened. There he was, the great one. In person.

"Come on, Ulysses," I said, taking his hand and gently pulling him forward. I repeated again what I'd been telling him on the way over: "Santa's here to meet the children. He wants to talk with you and find out what you like. You can tell him what kinds of toys you like. Here are the cookies we're giving him. He brings us presents, so it's only right we bring him something, too."

Ulysses dragged behind me, following with slow little steps. Santa saw him and called over to him. "Hello, little boy! Do you want to sit on my lap and tell me what you want for Christmas?"

I looked at Ulysses. His eyes shone, but at this suggestion his mouth changed from a little smile to a little "o" of astonishment. He shrank back. Santa smiled and greeted him again.

I watched as the two of them eyed one another across the stretch of glossy retail floor. Santa smiling gently; Ulysses as close to a swoon as I've ever seen him.

Then Ulysses seemed suddenly to become conscious of the zip-top sandwich bag of cookies that he was gripping with both hands. He drew himself up a little, and boldly stepped forward, all the way to Santa's chair. He held out the bag, his arms nearly straight before him.

"Here, Santa," he said in a soft voice. "I brought these cookies for you."

Doctor U and the animals

The other day when I came home from work, Don was excited to tell me that he and U had tended to Teddy Bear for hours, with the medical kit he got for his fourth birthday from our friend Sharon.

"He listened to Teddy Bear's heartbeat with the stethoscope," he said, "I looked around through the scope and said, 'Hmm. Yes. I see,' and then Ulysses did the same. Then Ulysses said he had a boo-boo and put the band-aid on his arm." The medical kit has a stiff bracelet sort of band-aid thing.

"Did you take his temperature?"

"Of course!"

Our friend Gigi gave Ulysses the teddy bear years ago, as a birth present. Just recently, he's begun carrying it around, carrying it to bed, asking for "Teddy Bear" by name. It's the first time he's formed an attachment with a stuffed animal as a friend.

Ulysses also made instant friends with his stuffed Boowa and Kwala dolls, characters from the Uptoten.com web site that he loves. We got them as a bonus for signing up for a year's service with the site a couple of months ago; we saved them for a birthday present. He was thrilled to see them -- he smiled and hugged them lovingly when he discovered them in the gold-foil cardboard box I'd put them in. Now they hang out with Teddy Bear, and they all go to bed with him together.

A couple of nights ago, he held Boowa in one hand and Kwala in the other, speaking for them and bobbing them up and down in turn. "Boo ha wa ma ba ba ba?" said Boowa. "Ooh, wah wah! Ooh, wah!" answered Kwala.

When he wakes up in the morning, he totters out from the bedroom carrying them all in his arms. He used to bring a handkerchief with him. And present it to us proudly, as if it were a trophy or some sort. Now it's the trio.

He hugs them in a bundle to his chest and says "Animals!"

U's Fourth Birthday, Part IV

I enlisted other guests' party services while I frosted the cake. Jennifer mixed icing colors for decorating the cake. Gloria, Vicky and Nico festooned the kitchen/dining area with "Happy Birthday" balloons (Jennifer kindly stopped to buy them on her way) and Hot Wheels crepe paper streamers.

These were the same rolls of Hot Wheels streamers that Don's mother bought when she was here for U's second birthday. It had been really hard to find party stuff at the party store that didn't have licensed character stuff on it: Spongebob, Dora, Barbie, Hot Wheels. We hadn't been able to find trademark-free streamers at all, so I decided on the Hot Wheels streamers, because, outside the commercial turnoff, they were cool looking: orange flames racing down a red background. The design actually worked with the concept of a streamer, unlike all the others.

***

Sigurd's job was blowing up balloons, to Ulysses's delight. The rest of the gang, when they were done making the streamer maze in the kitchen, joined S and U in the living room and formed a balloon-blowing-up-and-playing-with team. Gloria taught Ulysses the game of bat-the-balloon-in-the-air-and-don't-let-it-touch-the-ground. I watched and listened to the laughter and happy shouting while I puttered with the cake.

***

Ulysses ran into the kitchen -- to find me, to check on the progress with his cake, I guess. Or to tell me about the balloons, perhaps. But before he could tell me what he was about, he stopped short, looking up at the streamers and balloons everywhere.

"A party!" he said. "For me!"

"Yes!" I said. "It's your birthday party."

Ulysses lifted his arms out by his sides and began to hop up and down. "I'm dancing, Mama!" he said, smiling up at me. "I'm dancing!"

***

On Christmas day, Ulysses never did get around to opening all his presents. This morning, I'd re-wrapped in birthday-ish paper those little packages -- a Hot Wheels car still in its blister pack, a mesh sack of gold-wrapped chocolate coins, a jelly candy in the shape of a Christmas tree. He opened one of these to find a miniature ring toss game -- the kind where you press down on a button to make the rings swish through the water, and, ideally, land on a little peg. It was packaged in cellophane alongside a lollipop. "Merry Christmas!" the packaging announced. The lollipop was oblong, about 3/4" wide and 2" long, and striped diagonally with white, brown and forest green.

"Open, Mama-Tata! Open eh lollipop!" Sigurd pulled out his jacknife and worked free the tight neck of cellophane on the pop's stick.

Ulysses slipped away to the laptop workstation we set up for him recently, where he can stand and jump while he plays. He settled into some game play, licking on his lollipop, and the rest of us settled into conversation.

All at once, there was a cracking sound, and a scream came from Ulysses. The lollipop had somehow shattered into dozens of bits. Maybe it was exposed to heat or cold somewhere along the line? Or rattled against the ring-toss toy?

Don got to him first, with words of comfort. Ulysses held the lollipop up, smiling a little.

"Hix it, Tata," he implored. "Lollipop je broken."

"I can't fix that, Ulysses," he said. "It's too broken. I'm sorry."

A moment went by. Ulysses's face crumpled into tears. He sobbed and fell into Don's arms, then began to wander in little circles, crying quietly.

I remembered that in my handbag was a cinnamon lollipop U had picked out on our last visit to Shopko about a month ago. He'd never asked for it after we left the store. I ran to get it.

"Look at this Ulysses," I said, holding it near him. He turned quickly to see. The hope on his face turned dark. He shook his head slowly and looked at me.

"That's not a birthday lollipop," he choked through his tears.

I wish I could remember what Gloria said a few moments later that distracted him and made him laugh, forget the calamity of the birthday lollipop, and rejoin the party joy. She's better at cheering children up than I'll ever be.

U's Fourth Birthday, Part III

After opening one big box -- the medical kit -- Ulysses was content to leave the rest of his presents alone. That was a relief, as Don went back to having a bit of alone time before the house filled up for the afternoon and evening, and I turned to my big project: the cake!

I tried again to interest Ulysses in the cake. Now that he had the experience of opening a birthday present, he should be more in the mood, I reasoned.

"Ulysses, what color birthday cake do you want?"

"No."

"We're having a party today! Our friends are coming over for your birthday!"

"No."

So much for that.

The KitchenAid whirred, creaming butter and sugar together as I got out the sifter and cake flour.

"Mombie!" Ulysses called from his computer workstation. "Quiet! I'm busy!"

Ever since Ulysses discovered zombies -- he loves them -- I've become "Mombie."

***

By and by, party time arrived. The cakes were out of the oven and people were coming over at any moment. Ulysses still wasn't on board for the celebration. I decided to try a new tactic. I went into the bedroom and changed into a velvet blouse, and flowing, hippieish skirt and vest. Even put on earrings. Why I don't bother putting on this sort of thing more often, I'm not sure, because it's my favorite way to dress. At any rate, I went over to Ulysses and somehow distracted him from the video game he was playing on the uptoten.com site.

"Look at me, Ulysses!"

He looked. "Mama!" he said.

"I'm dressed up for your party! And here's what you're wearing." I put some clothes by him, on the spot on the couch where we dress him.

"Party!" he said. "Party! Beep, beep! We're going ride in the green car? To party?"

"No!" I said. "We're having the party right here! People are coming to us!"

"Party, party!" he said, and jumped on the couch, sticking out his ankles for me to dress him.

***

A moment later, U was dressed and in the kitchen, pointing to the cakes cooling on the rack. "Cake! Candles?" I showed him the box of candles. "Candles!" he said, happily.

"What color do you want your birthday cake to be?" I said, jumping on my opportunity.

Silence. Uh-oh.

Just then, Don walked through the room, and said, into the silence, "Red!"

"Red!" echoed Ulysses. "Red cake!"

"Would you like a red cake for your birthday, Ulysses?" I asked.

"Red!" U exclaimed. "Red cake! Red cake. Red, red, red. Red birthday cake. Red, red, yellow. Yellow cake."

That threw me. I backed up. "What color birthday cake would you like?" I asked.

"Yellow cake. Yellow birthday cake." He rummaged through the little bottles of decorator coloring on the dining table. He'd seen them once before, last summer, when we made dough ornaments with Donald's mother out in the yard during her visit from Georgia. He picked out the one with a yellow sticker on top.

Holing the bottle of yellow coloring, he walked over to our freestanding dishwasher and picked up the clear, plastic container of white frosting that I'd pulled out of the refrigerator a little while earlier -- I had made it the day before, figuring I'd color it when Ulysses put in a request, but he hadn't seen it before that moment. Right next to it was the container of white decorator icing. That he passed over.

He brought these two items to me -- exactly the two items needed to frost a cake yellow -- and placed them on the kitchen counter in front of me.

"Here, Mombie. Here yellow. Yellow birthday cake. Yellow!"


***

I turned the frosting into a mixing bowl and added a little yellow coloring. As I was stirring it in, Ulysses exclaimed, "You're baking, Mama! You're baking!"

"How is this?" I asked. "Is this yellow enough? Or do you want it more yellow?"

"More yellow!"

More yellow he got.

U brought over the coloring jar labeled leaf green. "Green, Mama! Green!" I broke off a lump of the decorating icing I'd mixed the day before and stirred it together in a bowl with a bit of green coloring. "How's that? Is it green enough? Or do you want more green?"

"More green!" he answered. "Birthday cake!"

***

Our friend Jennifer showed up and began helping with the cake project. She stirred up some bright red icing. Actually, it looked more magenta than anything, even though the jar was labeled "Christmas red." Good thing no one was requesting a red cake.

***

Our friends Sigurd and Gloria came over with their kids, Nico and Vicky. I had just finished covering the cake with frosting and was starting to fill decorating tubes with icing for piping flowers and whatnot. "What kind of cake is it?" Vicky asked.

"Yellow," I answered.

"I can see that," she replied.

Oops. Right. This cake was blindingly yellow. Spongebob yellow. In fact, Sigurd had already asked whether it was a sponge cake. Ha, ha. I explained that I meant it was golden on the inside.

***

The recipe came from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. The same recipe I used to make Don's birthday cake a couple of months ago -- the only difference was that I'd stirred coconut flakes into the frosting of his cake, and topped it with toasted coconut besides.

Last year, I read about cake baking and decorating for weeks in advance of U's third b-day. I practiced piping Crisco into flowers and borders and garlands for days. And then I followed recipes from Rose Levy Berenbaum's esteemed The Cake Bible to end up with a delicious, but complicated to make, buttercream frosting that never set up, even after I doubled the amount of powdered sugar in it, runny decorating icing that made its way to the base of the cake minutes after it was applied, and a dryish cake.

This year, I went with Bittman. For Donald's cake, I had used royal icing, which, it turns out, becomes rock hard shortly after application. This time, I used the 1974 Joy of Cooking's Decorative Icing, substituting organic palm oil for vegetable shortening. Perfect results, but a bit stiff.

***

For the writing, I mixed up some brown coloring with a lump of icing. I added some peanut oil to thin it sufficiently for handwriting.

It occured to me, as I mixed this, that it looked exactly like rich, luscious chocolate. Somehow I hadn't seen that coming. I thought it would be unpleasant and confusing to the palate to encounter something that looked this much like chocolate, but didn't taste chocolate, so I poured in some cocoa powder, enough to match in flavor the intense dark color of the icing. Plenty of cocoa powder.

Then it struck me that I could've skipped the brown coloring altogether.

***

U's Fourth Birthday, Part II

While Don and I were discussing, once again, how to introduce the birthday topic to Ulysses today, he stumbled, half-awake, into the office. There we were, surrounded by wrapping paper and wrapped presents. Red-handed! Fortunately, his consciousness was semi enough that I could easily divert his gaze and lead him out of the room before he registered any of it. And all was good cheer.

Several minutes later, Donald guided U to the uptoten.com page with the birthday greeting that awaited him that day: cartoon characters Boowa and Kwala singing lustily, "Happy birthday to you, to you! Happy birthday to ..."

"No," said Ulysses. "No, no, noooo!"

Oops. Too different, too early. Retreat, retreat! Back to good cheer.

A little after that, cuddling on the couch with Ulysses, I told him, "Today is your birthday, Ulysses!"

"No," he said.

"I'm going to make your birthday cake now!"

"No."

"What kind of cake would you like?"

"No."

I dropped the subject.

A little while later, Ulysses wandered back into the office. From where I was working in the kitchen, I could hear this conversation with Don.

"Wow! Present!"

"That's for later, when we have the cake."

"Present! Present!"

"No, Ulysses, you can't open them now. That's for later, when we have cake!" Don was starting to sound a little desperate.

"Yes! Present."

"No, Ulysses! You can't open that now. Mama will be upset!"

Suddenly I realized that Don's main worry was that he -- Don, that is -- would be in trouble with me if he let Ulysses open his presents early. Well, I thought, this stuff is supposed to bring fun. Not fear and misery. So I called out, "He can open his presents!"

"OK, Ulysses, you can open a present," said Don, but Ulysses had already carried the biggest box halfway across the house and over to his train table, which hasn't been repopulated with trains and tracks since we put it aside for the Christmas tree in December. We've left it clear for now, and figured it would make a good play space and present opening space for U's upcoming birthday. Evidently U had come to the same conclusion.

Ulysses worked off the paper to reveal ... the present our friend Sharon had sent us for Christmas of Aught Five! We had decided back then to give it to Ulysses when he had grown enough to understand what it was. A toy medical kit! At the time, when he was not quite two, it would've just been a random collection of interesting shapes to him. It seemed like a waste of such a beautifully presented set to give it to him at that time. By the time he was old enough to understand it, it would've been worn out, the pieces separated, the brand-new sheen worn off.

Over the past couple of months, Ulysses has picked up the relevant concepts and vocabulary: doctor, medicine, Band-Aid. And then there's: "Fix it," "It's broken," "Ow! That hurt!" and "I bonka'd my head!" Since last summer he's learned the names of a lot of body parts also, starting with head, and followed soon after with eye and foot. One of his favorite books is Maisy the Doctor. On uptoten.com one of his favorite games involves helping Kwala take medicine, get a shot, take a temperature, and so forth. Kwala sings a song, "I'm not scared of anything," through this ordeal in her sick bed. So this morning we rewrapped it in birthday paper (the original Xmas-themed wrapping was long gone) for four-year-old U.

And so he was thrilled to see the doctor kit! "Open the box! Help!" he said, and we obliged. He picked out the stethoscope and, to our surprise, directed the earpieces towards his head, held the resonator disk to his chest, and said, "Ba-BOOM! Ba-BOOM! Ba-BOOM!" Donald and traded glances and exclamations of the form "I didn't know he knew that."

He picked up the toy blood pressure measure and Don showed him how to squeeze the bladder. It made the needle spin on the dial. Ulysses squeezed happily, saying, "Around and around and around and around!"

"Is happy!" said Ulysses at the thermometer's 98.6 position, helpfully illustrated with a happy face as well as the Centigrade equivalent. "Is sad!" he said at the sad-face-fever setting.

He picked up the syringe and started pretend-plunging it into his arm.

"Oh, great," I said, "He must have gotten that watching Pulp Fiction."

"He's not shooting up!" said Donald. "He's drawing blood."

Later, at the party, I heard Don confessing to Sigurd and Gloria that he'd just been sticking up for Ulysses in saying that.

U's fourth: the prep

Ulysses's birthday is tomorrow and I wanted to make for a more fun and relaxed weekend by making it a three-day one. I'm puttering around cleaning and cooking stuff for tomorrow. I just made some buttercream frosting. I tasted a little and it had that rough, scratchy quality that mars the taste of frosting. Uh oh.

I was hoping it would go away by tomorrow -- that maybe it was the coarseness of the sugar that hadn't been absorbed into the butter and cream yet.

Then I was looking for decorative icing recipes and I came across this nugget of info in the (old) Joy of Cooking: it said that the cornstarch they put in confectioner's sugar has a raw taste and if you want it go away, heat it over boiling water for a little while. Oops. Too late for that. Now I'm thinking maybe this is just a brand of sugar that has a lot of cornstarch in it and I'm basically screwed. Then I remembered seeing, the other day at the natural food store, a bag of all-natural confectioner's sugar, but it was like four bucks. Do you have to pay four bucks instead of one just to get sugar that's all sugar and not sugar plus? Geez.

Well, I just hope the frosting tastes better by tomorrow. I'm about to make a decorative icing with more confectioner's sugar, cream and veg shortening. And vanilla. I hope it tastes OK. I am not of the school of thought that says it doesn't matter what a birthday cake tastes like, as long as it's there and pretty.

***

Oh, good. I just retasted that frosting and now it tastes good. The vanilla came to the fore instead of the powderyness. So maybe it was just a matter of letting everything get absorbed.

Last year for U's birthday I bought a bunch of frosting tips. I look forward to using them again!

Halloween prep

This neighborhood we're going to also has people who do up their houses to thrill the children on Halloween night. I am looking forward to it!

Unfortunately, the children of our friends are going to be off doing their own thing. Nico, 13, is doing something with his friends and Vicky, 8 is doing something with her friends. Gloria, a mathematician, is working on a grant proposal that's due tomorrow. So it's not the big H fest I've been looking forward to having with them for years.

The good news is that Sigurd is happy that we're coming -- otherwise he was going to be alone all night on door-answering duty.

For the robot costume, last week I got a lot of really cool gold-faced cardboard scraps at work that were being thrown out. I spent some time on the web researching robot costumes and came up with a sandwich-board concept. But then Donald nixed a boxy homemade robot because of safety. He didn't want any hard edges around U's neck, etc. I agreed immediately, once he put it that way.

I took U shopping for a costume on Sunday. I thought it would be best to wait until the last minute. I was really disappointed by the selections -- everything was Caribbean pirates, vampires and ghouls, and a few other characters thrown in.

We went to a thrift store that has a lot of new Halloween merchandise, but didn't find any ready-made costumes that U was remotely interested in. While there, we heard a father mention to his son that there was a used cowboy costume on the rack. Ulysses heard that and got excited by the idea of a cowboy. That costume was way too small, but I managed to find some basics on the regular clothes racks: a red plaid shirt and a denim vest with red piping!

We looked everywhere for a cowboy hat, but nobody has them! We went to a Halloween superstore kind of thing, and stuff was flimsy and expensive, which I was expecting, but not to that degree! $55 for a Thomas the Tank Engine costume. $30 for a Sherrif Woody: an already-beat-up-while-still-brand-new foam hat and a cheesy-looking coverall.

I thought that was so weird, that children's cowboy hats were impossible to find. Next year I'm going to get a jump on things and look for essential props on eBay.

I put out an e-mail at work for a cowboy hat, and someone brought me a red child's cowboy hat today! Someone else brought me a red kercheif.

Remember the gold cardboard? On the computer at work, I drew a sherrif's star -- 5 pointed, with little circles centered over each pointed -- somehow, the circles make it seem really Western -- and the automated computerized cutting machine people were nice enough to offer to cut it out for me. (I was going to hack through it with an X-acto.) I sewed Velcro on the denim vest, and attached the gold star.

So U has a red hat, a red kerchief, a denim vest with red buttons and red piping, a red plaid shirt, a gold star, and blue jeans. I thought of drawing a Wyatt Earp mustache on him, but I think it's better to keep it simpler at this point. He might think he wants the mustache but then get freaked out by seeing it out of the corner of his eye, or something like that.

I can't wait to see if I can get the costume/trick-or-treat concept across. If he puts his costume on, it will be adorable.

Robot Cake

Saturday morning. Don went out to run errands: get the oil changed and tires rotated in preparation for our big trip to Missouri coming up in October, drop off and pick up and the library, pick up grocery essentials that we've run out of, mainly eggs.

Ulysses happened to notice the KitchenAid mixer in the corner of the kitchen counter. "Robot. Oh, robot! Cake, Mama, cake. Robot. Cake!"

Up until a few weeks ago, Ulysses interpreted everything possible in his environment as a train. Zippers on jackets were train tracks, blocks in a row could be pushed like a train, and so on. Abruptly, his obsession shifted to robots. I'm not sure what the trigger was, or if there was a trigger. But overnight, the free-standing dishwasher became a robot while it was in operation, our old webcam that stands on three legs became a robot, and now the red KitchenAid that I love so much had become a robot, too. He wanted to see this robot in action.

Cake -- why not?

"Would you like to make a cake?" I offered.

"Yeah!" he said, hopeful and excited. As if he hadn't actually expected a yes answer.

"OK," I said, measuring what my next words should be. How to do everything that had to be done before cake-making could begin, without tripping the panic switch? What could U
comprehend? He needed to trust that we were really going to make this cake, even though the first thing I had to do involved leaving the kitchen. "He understands a lot more than you think he does," my mother-in-law had told me during her visit in June. "A lot more." I decided to aim high.

"We'll look in a book. We'll find the cake we want to make. We'll read and learn what to do. Then we'll make the cake."

U looked startled. "Book?" he said, incredulous. A non-sequiter.

"Yes. We'll find a cake we want in the book, and then we'll make it. Any cake you want."

He scrutinized my expression. "A ... cake book?" he asked.

"Exactly," I said.

He looked doubtful, but climbed down off the stool he'd been using to admire the KitchenAid closer up. His face seemed to say, "This I've gotta see."

Now came the trickiest sell: doing seemingly un-cake-related things without inciting a riot. "I'm going to the bathroom and I'm going to get dressed. Then I'll clean up the kitchen. Then we'll look in the book and then we'll make the cake." He was carried along by my confidence -- at least, that was my plan -- and didn't complain. I think he might have been waiting to see what random object I was next going to connect to cake. "Clean up!" he echoed, happily.

After a few minutes, I was ready to search. I pulled my Cook's Country 2005 and 2006 compilations off the shelf -- lovely, retro-plaid cover with red cloth bindings -- and hunted fast, while the spell held. I couldn't believe my luck in finding this after a few moments: Quick and easy cupcakes from scratch especially for the parents of toddlers, from the April/May 2005 issue. Could anything be more perfect?

I studied the recipe hastily, then showed it to Ulysses. It was set with a lovely, two-page, full-color spread. "Would you like to make this?" I said. "Yeah," he answered, nodding.

"OK, let's go." I tried to retrieve the book and get us moving back towards the kitchen. "Let's go make cupcakes. C'mon. Let's get going."

He sat with the book, not answering me. "Apple upcake!" he said after a few seconds, pointing at the photo of a cupcake done up like an apple. "Flower! Ice cream! Hey, bird! Bird upcake" I sat back down and looked at the pictures of cupcakes with him. "Hockey ball!" he said.

Hockey ball? That one was frosted white and iced with baseball-like stitches. "That's a baseball," I said.

"Hockey ball upcake," he corrected me. Whatever.

He studied the recipe pages for a few minutes, with running commentary on all the pictures. I responded to all the picture IDs, while studying the recipe over his shoulder. After a few minutes, I supposed this was our new activity, and I let go the plan to actually make the cake. Suddenly he jumped up and ran towards the kitchen. "Come on, Mama! Cake! Let's go! Come!"

Aha! Just as I wanted to study the recipe, so did he. He had taken to heart what I'd said earlier: read, learn, do.

I headed for the refrigerator to get out four eggs. They needed to be room temperature, so I filled a steel bowl with hot tap water to get them warmed up. I opened the refrigerator door, and ...

Donald was out grocery shopping. We were out of eggs.

How was I going to make cake now?

Then I remembered seeing in the 2006 compilation a recipe that dated from the rationing of World War I. It was a cake that used no eggs, no butter. It had come to be called "Wacky Cake" because of the assembly method: Pour the dry ingredients directly into the greased cake pan. Make three wells in the flour mixtures. Pour vinegar into one, oil into the second, and vanilla into the third. Pour a cup of water over top, give a quick, partial stir, and shove the mess into the oven. It's supposed to mix as it bakes.

I found the recipe and showed the picture of a confetioners-sugar-dusted chocolate cake square to Ulysses, holding my breath as I said, "Would you like to make this cake?"

He looked at the picture. "Yeah," he said, happily.

Whew. Now, about the assembly part. Ulysses was standing on the stool by the KitchenAid, looking lovingly at that robot. There was no way I was going to leave the robot out of the process. That was the whole point! I got out ingredients and measuring cups and measuring them out one by one, calling out what I was doing. Ulysses echoed everything, and took each cup and spoon full of powder and oil and liquid in his hands carefully, emptying each ingredient into the bowl. I fitted the KitchenAid with the whisk at his request -- I would've used the beater. We ran that robot just as long as he wanted, and then poured the batter into the wells of a cupcake pan. I told him to stay carefully away as I opened the oven and put in the pan. Then I called him over to flip the light switch. That's our deal with the stove and oven -- it's the one control on it that he's allowed to touch.

I was so proud of how he handled the ingredients, how he listened to all my instructions, how patiently he stood back while I managed the oven. He also listened when I told him the pan coming out was hot.

By the time Don got home and the groceries were put away, the cupcakes were ready to eat. Ulysses was thrilled and so was I, to have something that we'd really baked together. They were pretty good, too, for being made with vegetable oil and water. I joked to Don that these war-ration cupcakes could be marketed as a premium product today -- they're vegan, after all!

But best of all, it was robot cake.

Live show

Today Ulysses and I went to see Circus Boy perform as part of the free Kids in the Rotunda Series at the Overture Center downtown.

We've gone to these events before. Or, I should say, we've attempted to go. Or, even more precisely, we've been briefly present in the auditorium while some of these events were going on. Let me tell you, for a 90-second payoff, that's a lot of work. Not the least of which is just finding a parking spot and hauling a 30-pound bundle of joy several city blocks in at least one direction. (Use a stroller? Ulysses don't sit in no stinkin' strollers!)

So I was amazed when, a few minutes after arriving at this show of circus stunts -- juggling and such -- Ulysses got me to my feet and pushed me (he steers with little gentle, but insistent shoves to the backs of the knees) around the back of the crowd and down the steep slope of the bench seating area -- it's sort of terraced right into the topology of the room, and not built into individual seats, thank goodness -- to the very front row, by the stage apron.

A dilemma presented itself: signs described the empty bench area as reserved for those needing sign language interpretation, so it would be wrong to try to sit there. On the other hand, if we sat right where we were, at the base of the steps in the aisle, someone would come over soon and tell us we had to move because of fire regulations. (Like at the Indian classical dance concert for kids in 2006.) And if I tried to move us back to watch from the back of the house, there'd be heartbreak and screaming and me carrying a thrashing bundle four blocks to the van.

I saw -- or convinced myself that I saw -- a thinning of the throng front row center. Guerrilla-like, I threw myself belly down and scrambled to it. U followed. I squinched as low as possible on the floor in front of the stage, as close as possible to the little feet on the bench behind me, hoping to not attract the attention of the fire rules enforcers. Ulysses practically danced with glee -- and not at a height that would disturb the people behind, so that was good.

His eyes took on that shine of excitement -- the all-consuming world-of-wonder look of happiness, awe, thrill, that only a child's face can register.

He laughed at all the jokes, even the ones he couldn't possibly get. ("This trick is the reason that for seven years ... I have never ... had a single ... girlfriend.")

Circus Boy stuffed his mouth full of ping pong balls in preparation to spit them high in the air and catch them back in his mouth. Ulysses laughed. Before starting the mouth juggling, Circus Boy paused to waggle his tongue, incongruous between those enormous ping-pong-ball-stuffed
cheeks. Ulysses practically fainted with happiness at the sight. He rode a tiny, tiny bicycle -- the world's smallest, he called it -- in circles around the stage (this was the clue from which Don and I figured out later that this was the same guy we'd seen at Circus World Museum years ago, I think in 1999).

Circus Boy climbed a wide, metal runged ladder and balanced atop it, holding it clapped between his knees, his legs improbably threaded through the rungs. He needed to keep rocking the ladder from foot to foot on the ground to keep the balance, apparently. He ladder-walked around the stage, gently making fun with the audience volunteer while juggling a trio of long-necked, silver clubs. Ulysses loved this so much that I had to throw my arms around him and hold on tight to keep him from running up onstage. I looked up at Circus Boy's face. He knew he was balancing on a ladder, but had he ever had to do that while an enthusiastic toddler tried to climb on? I wondered. I tightened my grip a little.

After the show, we stood in line for an autographed DVD of Circus Boy's greatest feats. Ulysses didn't understand the line -- why we should be standing stock still instead of going somewhere and doing something. Fortunately, the merchandise table's skirting was coming undone, so Ulysses threw himself into the task of repairing it. Our turn came, and I pulled him away from his work and handed him a five-dollar bill. While Ulysses looked at the money, seemingly wondering why he was holding it, Circus Boy took it out of his hand and replaced it with the DVD. That Ulysses understood. "DD!" (DVD) he exclaimed, happily.

The disc came with our choice of a poster or a set of juggling balls, with instructions. I chose the balls, of course. Something to learn from and do versus something to look at, or figure out where to store? Easy. Ulysses handed me the DVD so he could receive the clear, plastic three-pack of colorful, sand-filled juggling balls from Circus Boy (I learned later, from the DVD, that his actual name is Bobby Hunt). He regarded them seriously.

"He loved the show," I said. "Thank you," said Circus Boy to me, and to U: "What's your name?"

"Ulysses," I answered.

"What a great name!" he said, "How old are you?"

U looked briefly up at Circus Boy, then returned his attention to the balls. "He's three," I supplied.

Circus Boy smiled at Ulysses, but got nothing back. "He couldn't care less," he said, with a disappointed little laugh.

It was reasonable enough, I knew, but it was completely wrong. Not only had Ulysses been rapt throughout the show, but it was the first live show ever that Ulysses hadn't walked out on. It was a milestone. Then U was struck hard when he understood that he'd purchased a DVD of the live show -- I saw it register on his face when he saw the picture on the case cover, and it bore out after we got home and he played the disc with his new DVD-operating skills. To top it off, he'd been presented with a pack of not one, but three beautiful balls. "Balls," he whispered. "Boi--ng, boi--ng..." he trailed off.

And now Circus Boy thought I was only being polite when I said this boy loved the show.

"He's overwhelmed," I said. "He loved the show."

"Really?"

"He loved the show," I said again, with emphasis. "He's going to watch this DVD eight thousand times. Tonight. And now he can learn to juggle," I said, indicating the balls.

Circus Boy looked in a new light at the way U was studying the balls. "He's three? He can learn to juggle. It's a lot of fun."

"He can learn to juggle, and then I can learn to juggle," I said. "Then we'll take our act on the road!"

"You can be my competition," he said.

I smiled.

Upside Down!

This morning U and I watched an educational DVD called "Noodlebug." The title song: "Noodlebug, noodlebug, helps you give your brain a hug..." Which sounds to me like the way a headache feels, actually.

The last time we watched this was at least six months ago, maybe even last fall. It didn't engage U and he didn't go in for endless repeat viewings of it. This time, though, was different. He sang along (with his trademark accurate pitch and timing) and danced along to just about everything. When a group of kids slid down a slide, one by one, in fast motion, he cheered. When the video reversed so that the children seemed to be sliding up backwards, he laughed and shouted. That gag got funnier with each viewing.

In the first number, a row of live-action children intermixed with cartoon children, set against a cartoon background, sing that modern classic, "The Wheels of the Bus." U sang along, but his lyrics were "Upside down! Upside down!" It went for the verse about the wheels, and also for the people bouncing. By the second or third viewing, he'd noticed and adapted to the real lyrics, but I thought his version was far more entertainng.

Also adorable: when we were sifting through the DVDs to pick something, I read off "Pee-Wee," when I got to Pee-Wee's Playhouse. "Pee-pee?" he asked.

Nothing

Today Ulysses used this word for the first time: "Nothing." Here's how he used it.

I came upon him fiddling with the lock on a closet door, intense concentration on his face.

Me: What are you doing?

He (jerking up to meet my gaze): Nothing.

"Sorry"

Our living room couch is a convertible futon sofa. It folds flat into a futon bed. Last year, U developed the dangerous habit of climbing up to the top of the couch to sit and hang out. We couldn't get him to stop. So we folded the couch flat, into its bed shape, and decided that would be the configuration until he was mature enough to be safer.

On Monday, earlier this week, we decided it was time to put back the couch shape. U climbed it once on Monday, and we were both very stern: "No! No! No! It's dangerous! To je opasno!" He was crushed, as we expected, but he didn't argue. As Don said, "I'd rather he got his feelings hurt than his body hurt."

Last night, U and I were sitting on the couch together reading Maisy books and singing along to the Maisy theme song on TV. In high spirits, U began to climb to the top of the couch. "No!" I said sharply, and only once. He stopped, abruptly, and came back down to a normal, sitting position. A sorrowful look clouded his features, and he looked into my eyes. "Sorry," he said in a small, clear voice.

He got covered in kisses and wrapped in a big hug.

***
I can't help but feel proud of him -- we never told him, "Say, 'thank you,'" "Say, 'you're welcome,'" and yet he consistently does. I feel proud of myself for being such a good role model, but especially I feel proud of him for intuitively modeling himself after civil, good behavior. He taught himself how to behave graciously, how to respond to kindnesses and how to return kindness. Now, he's taught himself the use of apology, as well. To me, this is a lot more advanced than learning to parrot a set of words meant for a set of situations, which is what possibly might result from just being trained to say "thank you" and so on.

Go, U!

Fish!

Ulysses drew this picture on his magnetic doodle pad, then took it to show Donald, saying, "Fish!" So Donald snapped a photo, and sent me Internet chat at work to tell me about it. I was so excited, I told everyone in the room, and I couldn't wait to get home and see my little boy's first picture!

3rd birthday party

Ulysses turned three years old on Friday, Feb. 16! We had a party on Saturday. Ulysses wore his birthday suit.

Click on the cake to see lots of pictures. I recommend you click on the Slideshow tab after clicking on the cake. It will take some minutes for the slideshow to cycle through, what with all the movies and all. Enjoy!

2007_0217 3rd birthday party

Le Menu

• Corn Dogs
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Pepperoni Pizza
• Birthday Cake

Everything made from scratch, of course.

The culinary theme was kid food. We wanted to serve food that U would actually want. The only thing he ate all evening, though, was a PBJ. And cake.

Corn Dogs

We worked on this recipe for days! We were so far off at first that we decided we'd better eat corn dogs at every meal until we got it right, so we wouldn't run out of time. That's a lot of corn dogs. We started out with a recipe from a book called "Street Food" that we got at a yard sale a summer or two back. Great book, goes international! Can't find it on Amazon, or I'd give the link.

The final version included stone ground corn meal (gives a nice crunch), masa harina (gives a nice fresh-tortilla-like scent) and flour. The dogs are speared with a craft stick, then dusted with cornstarch and dipped in batter made with the dry ingredients above, plus a bit of salt and baking soda, an egg, and our wonderful homemade buttermilk. Macaroni and Cheese: We used a recipe from the April-May 2005 issue of Cooks' Country, the new publication from the makers of Cooks' Illustrated. Love it, love it. The recipe was a low-fat version. Boy, was it good, and luscious and filling, too! Where it said skim milk, I substituted whole milk. It didn't seem quite cheddary enough, so I doubled the cheddar. The crumb topping didn't seem buttery enough, so I doubled the butter. The white sauce didn't seem to call for enough butter, so I doubled that from the start. That sure was great low-fat mac 'n' cheese!

Pepperoni Pizza

Don made this. We've used lots of recipes; this one was also from the glorious "Street Food." Started with flour, yeast, warm water, olive oil, salt, made dough, let rise. Used pizza sauce we had frozen from a month or so back, made with I don't even remember what. Some form of tomatoes in a can, seasonings, salt. Topped with shredded mozz and sliced pepp. What else do you need?

Birthday Cake

I worked from The Cake Bible for this one. Fabulous cake -- yellow with chocolate frosting. I've never eaten better cake in my life. I plan to post separately about the cake adventure.

We also planned to make guacamole and serve Breyer's vanilla ice cream in cones, but people were somehow too stuffed.

The culinary theme was kid food. I wanted to serve food that U would actually want. The only thing he ate all evening, though, was a PBJ. And cake.

Glossary

What does Ulysses say? Here's a glossary, in approximate reverse order of development. That is, the higher up on a list the word appears, the more recently it's appeared.

Word                          Translation (as needed)
/First appearance

Feb 07

cake                          frosting, sweet treats

nana                          any food on a stick
                                 (extension of "ice cream" meaning)

mamo                          mambo

cold

geghh                         pig

bowl

ho-tch                        hot

cake

ha-tch                        hat

Eh...eh-cue!                  Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!

(siren wailing)

(airplane motor humming)

us-sai down                   upside down

(vacuum cleaner humming)


Jan 07

Mac                           Max (from kid show Max & Ruby)

Buh-tch                       Buzz (Lightyear)

ko-ket                        chocolate

ee-MOKE                       remote control

nana                          ice cream (replaced "neen")

shoe

I you!                        I see you!

No go!                        Don't go!

moo                           cow mooing (replaced "moo-ah")

(duck quacking)

(horse whinnying)


Dec 06

booo-k                        book

cheeza                        pizza

cheee                         cheese

Eh! Keekee!                   ?????

neen, I neen                  ice cream

nana                          banana

buh-bol                       bubble

you're welcome

abble                         apple

akuka                         yabuka (Serb. "apple")

moo-ah                        cow mooing

Help! Me help!                Help me!


Nov 06

Mama

boo-boo                       any spot that got hurt

fish, shish                   fish

Here go                       Here you go


Sometime 06

choo-choo

(Train on tracks: "chika-chicka-chicka...")

(tickling: "ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka...:")

Po! Po! Po! Poke! Poke! Poke!

(during poke and tickle play)

All gone (replaced "ah gum")

All done

Ook! Atah! Look! (?????)

cookie

Yay!

ah-tah                        hot dog

How do? How do you do?

doll

hello

(blowing)                     hot, fire, candles

Ta too!                       Thank you

omomo                         ajdemo (Serb. "let's go")

akika                         patika (Serb. "slippers")

(cat meowing)

(mouse squeaking)

(fish saying "blub-blub-blub")

(dinosaur and big cat roar)

Eh, teh, go!                   Ready, set, go!

Go!


Sometime 05

Oh, no!

dai-dai                        bye-bye

ook! look

ah gum                         all gone

uh-oh

(blowing)                      too hot to eat

Dada

no                             (replaced "note")

note no

cracker

Boo-boo

About two weeks ago, Ulysses used the word "boo-boo" for the first time. I've never used it, myself -- Don says he's said it. And it's used in a couple of often-seen TV episodes I can think of (Spongebob Squarepants: No Weenies Allowed; Go, Diego, Go: A Boo-Boo on the Pygmy Marmoset) Ulysses didn't just say it; he used it.

We were sitting together at the dining table. I was reading the Web on my laptop; he was atop my lap. (I suppose that makes him the actual laptopper in this story, but anyway...) I shifted position in such a way that the carving under the table scraped against his knee. He whimpered a little, but I didn't react. I was only partly conscious of it; I was reading. He whimpered a little more loudly. I reached out and patted his knee with my hand, glancing at him briefly before going back to reading. Then he said, in a clear, plaintive little voice, "Boo-boo!" The tone meant, "Hey! Don't you get what's going on here?" That stopped my distracted half-interaction. I stopped reading and leaned to kiss the boo-boo'd knee. Ulysses relaxed, and smiled.

A few mornings later, shortly after we'd gotten up, we were walking together in circles in the kitchen. I stopped walking; U walked into me, making slight contact against the back of my heel with his toe. "Boo-boo!" Don walked in to see me kissing U's foot. "Boo-boo?" he said. "Already?"

Now the slightest touch is call for "boo-boo!" Boo-boos everywhere; lots of kisses. Phantom boo-boos arise spontaneously, even while sitting still. Sometimes they travel from one hand to the other; we see him track them. "Boo-boo," he said, one evening, inspecting his right hand. Then his gaze traveled to his left hand, and it was as if his right was forgotten. "Boo-boo." Some third thing drew his mental focus; the boo-boo, evidently, vanished.

A few nights ago, I gave Ulysses an uninvited kiss on the forehead. He didn't like it. He wiped desperately at his forehead, and cried out a little. His voice started to get panicky. Then, all at once, he stopped. His hand held protectively near the afflicted region of his forehead, he looked at me piteously, and said, in a little voice, "Boo-boo." So I kissed his forehead. And somehow, that made it better.